Acknowledgements

First and foremost, the authors would like to acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ for making all of this possible. It is God who made it possible for Femi Iris Hamilton to be born and raised and develop into the influential leader that she is and it is He who gave us the resources to write this book. 

We would also like to acknowledge the donors and supporters of Leaders of Godly Character International (LGCI), the organization that has sponsored the writing of this book. LGCI is a non-profit organization created with a purpose of creating leaders of Godly character who will serve God’s people. The organization provides leadership training to adults and adolescents in poor communities that would not otherwise have access to leadership training. LGCI also supports education through the support of the creation of leadership books like TOUGH LOVE. Thank you to the donors and supporters for making LGCI possible.

Our sincere appreciation goes to Femi Iris Hamilton, the subject of this book. We do not take her willingness to be the subject of a book for granted; many people shy away from this level of notoriety and publicity. However, when we pitched the idea of a book to her and the benefit that this book would have for many people who need to learn leadership lessons from her life, she agreed. She agreed and demonstrated to us why she has been such an effective influential force in her life. She was always prepared and always on time for our interview appointments. Even in the later stages of producing the manuscript, when her husband turned gravely ill and was on his death-bead and it was obvious to us that she was not in the mood for interviews, pictures or thinking about writing a book, she demonstrated the reliability, commitment and resilience that has served her well in life by keeping our appointments, putting on a brave face, and delivering on her commitment to us as authors of the book. We learned as much about leadership from how she treated us during this process as we did from the information we gleaned from others about her or from her own account of her life.

This book would not have been possible without the unflinching support of Femi Hamilton’s children. Franklyn, Dora, Plummer, Fese, Rebecca, and Emily have been amazing sources of information and verification and were good enough to involve their children in the editing and verification process for the book! We are also grateful to all of Femi Hamilton’s brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, brothers-inlaw, sisters-in-law, and friends who contributed to this book. 

Our spouses have been a source of quiet and unrelenting support throughout the life cycle of this book. From ideation stage to the stages of living with husbands who incessantly have meetings with each other and spent hours away from family writing, Dr Williette James and Renee Taylor-Pearce have allowed their husbands (the authors) to focus on writing and researching; for this, we are grateful. Our sincere appreciation goes to our editor, Mrs. Esme James, for her thorough review of this book. 

Last but not least, we thank Mr. Plummer J. C. Hamilton, husband of Femi Hamilton, for his unflinching support of this book. Even though he fell gravely ill midway through the writing and research of this book, his support at the start was enthusiastic and his support of Femi Hamilton throughout her life and work is a significant reason why this book exists. 

Foreword

To say I am delighted, privileged and honoured to have   been asked to write the foreword to this book would be an understatement. Having read the manuscript, I subscribe, for the most part, to what has been captured about Femi Hamilton or Aunty Femi as I call her, and the manner in which it has been presented. 

Married to my late mum’s younger brother, Plummer Hamilton (Senior), the Hamiltons are very family-oriented. We were frequent visitors to their home where we spent the majority of holidays and weekends. Their children, Franklyn, Plummer, Rebecca, and Walter (now deceased), have been and still remain my closest relatives. 

One of the authors of this biography, Modupe, is a first cousin (my late mum’s younger sister’s last pikin); he was a co-beneficiary of the tough love dished out by the principal subject of this book. Also, professionally and businesswise, the author and I share common values and ethos on leadership and discipline and a healthy respect for each other.

I have known Modupe Taylor-Pearce (Junior) for almost all my life, especially growing up, though he was much younger than me. Our paths crossed ever so often as kids with frequent visits to each other’s houses and often at Aunty Femi’s and Uncle Plummer’s house. Even now, as adults, we are still close and our paths cross regularly, professionally, socially and, of course, as family. Dupe-Dupes is how I affectionately call him and I’m quite close to his lovely wife, Renee and their children, Chinua, Mandisa and Makeida. 

Modupe, I believe, is best placed to write this book, having spent a good part of his formative years at the home of Aunty Femi when his parents, Aunty Olive and Uncle Modupe, left Sierra Leone for Kenya. Like any of Aunty Femi’s children, Dupe and many others received the tough love that shaped their lives from the onset, so that they could become the best version of themselves. There was no escaping the tutelage of Aunty Femi and so, from his vantage point, an insider’s information point of view, Dupe-Dupes has captured the life of Femi Hamilton as no one else could. 

My own earliest recollection of Aunty Femi was when I was about four years old. Often, after church, we would visit them at Aberdeen Road where they lived, before they moved to Lumley. She usually had on a loose summer dress with her legendary Dr Scholl’s slippers on her feet. She was constantly on the move. It seemed like she never stopped. She would go up and down the house, barking out orders, with that unique bellowing voice of hers, issuing instructions to a multitude of workers. She was always in control, with an air of composure that made her come across as uniquely powerful. She was always on your case and she never let up. 

Buffalo Bill! she would bellow. This was her nickname for me and she still calls me that to this day. "Kam tek sɔm rays bred na ya; luk na frij, jinja bia de-de; mek-es nɔ, adi nɔ yu nɔ it frɔm mɔnin we yu de drɔ-drɔ so?"  (Come and have some rice bread; see if there’s some ginger beer in the fridge; why are you moving so sluggishly? Didn’t you eat anything this morning?)

She was always straight to the point; she never shied away from telling anyone the truth whether it hurt or not; behind all that though, she was a very kind-hearted person. Birthdays were always important to her - she never forgot them. She still doesn’t. You would get the customary wake-up telephone call on your birthday and later you would receive a basket of goodies, consisting of rice bread, cakes, akara, fried fish, you name it. And there was always a bottle of ginger beer accompanying them.

Tough Love is a book that presents a fascinating insight of an individual who has helped shaped the lives of all who have crossed her path. This is a must-read book, which would not be out of place in a leadership and discipline course. The book presents the life of an individual who, in my own estimation, if there were just ten more people

like her, they would make Sierra Leone a paradise. 

In the words of one of the authors: No songs have been sung about her, nor articles written extolling her virtues. There have been no television appearances nor radio programmes. She is not famous by any stretch of the imagination and she wouldn’t have it any other way. She is an almost invisible presence who lives her life by the simple, but powerful, philosophy of: help one person…and then one more person."   

Enjoy the read…….

Buffy B Bailor

Chartered Accountant and Business Consultant

Introduction

I cannot but stress that a great leader is a servant first. That is the key to his greatness. A servant makes sure that other people's needs are served first. He focuses on other people's perspectives, gives them the support to meet their goals, and involves them in decisions, where appropriate. Tan Kok Heng (Dr)

Walking through the front gates of the United States Military Academy in West Point NY (USA), the young man takes a moment to reflect on the trajectory of his life that brought him to this moment. The year is 1990 and he is the first man from Sierra Leone to be admitted here, adding to just a handful of blacks in total. West Point, as the academy is often called, is one of the foremost institutions of higher learning, military training, and leadership development in the world and for the next few years he will be moulded into a commissioned leader of character, committed to the values of Duty, Honour, Country and prepared for a career of professional excellence. What he doesn’t know yet is that the time spent here will serve as a springboard into a position in which, decades later,  he will  be able to motivate countless Africans, using simple principles of leadership. 

For now, all he can think of is the one who set him on this path. Thousands of miles across the Atlantic, in the small West African nation of Sierra Leone, he wonders what she is doing. If he listens hard enough, he can almost hear her barking a reproof at some poor soul who doesn’t realize how good they have it, how lucky they are to be the focus of her blistering brand of correction. After just a few years spent with her he had gone from being a wilful teen with a particular aversion to hard work, to a young man worthy of acceptance in one of the world’s finest schools. 

Her name is Olufemi Iris Hamilton. Some call her, FEM-1.

The affectionate moniker could be viewed as a subconscious affirmation of her status as an alpha female. It almost sounds like the personalized number plate of race car – and that is what she is – a high octane power-house of a woman with a penchant for zooming into the lives of anyone within her gravitational field and leaving them anything but the same. She is fast, she is audacious and she leaves an impression. The young man even owes to her the fact that he was able to meet the physical requirements for being accepted into the school. He cannot help but smile as he remembers her standing over him as he did (or tried to do), the required set of pull-ups, her voice loud, her language coarse – his first ever drill sergeant. 

Life at West Point is no walk in the park. He is pushed to his physical and mental limits but, for the most part, he is able to meet the high standards required of him. He is up before sunrise and every task he is given is done speedily, efficiently and on time. But it is not West Point alone that builds the man. It merely plays a role in smoothing out the rough edges. The real building began when he said goodbye to his parents as they embarked on a journey of their own to the East African country of Kenya. FEM-1 had agreed to take him and that meant from then on, he was just as important to her as any of her own children. Every now and then the young man’s thoughts veer to the woman who had prepared him for this life without even knowing it. He knows that she has not wasted time patting herself on the back for what she has helped him achieve. Instead she has found someone else to focus on – someone else to mould into the best version of themselves. It is in her nature. She cannot help it. 

In 2020, FEM-1 celebrated her eightieth birthday. In all her years, there have been many like the young man who have gone on to achieve great things and can trace the roots of their success back to their first interactions with her. No songs have been sung about her, nor articles written extolling her virtues. There have been no television appearances nor radio programmes. She is not famous by any stretch of the imagination and she wouldn’t have it any other way. She is an almost invisible presence who lives her life by the simple, but powerful, philosophy of: help one person…and then one more person. In a world where the young and old alike desperately seek guidance towards excellence – to embody the principles that allow us to influence success in others, FEM-1 possesses a trait that is all too rare. As Buffy Bailor,  President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants Sierra Leone, who also wrote the foreword to this biography, remarks, If there were just ten more people like her, Sierra Leone would be a paradise.

The daughter of a trader in pigs’ feet and one of two girls among six children, she was raised to take care of the males in her life. It was a time when this was simply what was expected of a girl. But rather than surrender to a life of servitude, she chose to harness her mother’s teachings and make them work in her favour; these became her support structure as she evolved into Dr Heng’s classification of a great servant-leader. Femi Hamilton’s name may not appear on any most influential lists, but her natural instinct towards transforming the lives of anyone she comes in contact with, puts her among the most important leaders Sierra Leone has ever produced. 

In this book, we will explore the leadership journey of Olufemi Iris Hamilton through her own eyes and memory, as well as those of the many people that know her. The lessons that she has learned on how to become successful in life and leave a positive legacy are useful for people of all ages to emulate and to inculcate into their lives.  Buffy Bailor stated that if Sierra Leone had ten more people like FEM1 the country would be a paradise. This book is one step in the process of creating those ten people. 

As a co-author of this book and the person inspired to initiate the writing project, I have been a direct beneficiary of Aunty Femi’s leadership. I am that young man who entered West Point in 1990 and excelled there due to the preparation that she gave me to be successful in life and to be successful in my application for entrance into West Point. Today, as I teach leadership lessons to executives all over the world, I continually draw on the lessons that I learned from Aunty Femi. I wish that there could have been thousands more that she could have raised, or that she could have been given the opportunity to influence millions more by being appointed to a leadership position when she was in her prime. But alas, this did not happen. However, her leadership lessons are encapsulated in this book and I encourage anyone from age 10 to age 80 who wants to live a successful life to read, digest, and adopt the life principles that made Iris Femi Hamilton, a simple girl from the east end of Freetown, become one of the most successful leaders in Sierra Leone. 

Dr Modupe Taylor-Pearce

1

Makings of an Empath

A

Church of the Holy Trinity. A gilded cross held aloft on a n organ rendition of the hymn Were you there when they crucified my Lord? drifts through the front doors of the

polished wooden staff emerges through the door curtains,

followed by a procession of solemn-faced choristers. The hems of their black cassocks flutter as they walk, barely an inch above the ground. No white surplices contrast with the blackness as they would on any ordinary Sunday. The intention of the plain black robes is to contribute to an atmosphere that should generate solemn contemplation of

Christ’s crucifixion. 

After a sing-song final benediction by an ageing priest, parishioners slide out of the pews and pour out after the choral procession. They spend the next few moments chit-chatting –  something they had been unable to do effectively in the church. Claudius Jarrett and his wife Ayodele mingle with other parishioners, many of whom are their neighbours or Ayodele’s fellow traders at Bombay Street Market. Standing somewhat off to the side, their children wait impatiently for the after-service ritual to be over. Mary and her young brother Emery, are engaged in a hushed argument about the time (raising their voices